Pre-industrial dreaming in post-industrial Japan: Department stores and the commoditization of community traditions

Abstract

This essay explores ways large retailers create pre-industrial communal imagery through advertising, service rituals and special events. The discussion of 'community' as a consumer commodity is situated in the context of Japan's contemporary nostalgia, highlighting the threat to collective identity created by urbanization, industrialization and increasing westernization. Japanese department stores preserve, promote, invent and re-invent tradition, providing a symbolic linking of Japan's agrarian past, its post-industrial present and the unknown future.

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